August 4, 2015

My family is full of green-thumbed gardeners, and they all told us* we were nuts to nurture five squash plants for two people. They might've been right, but we'll never know.

That's right. We're down to one struggling zucchini plant. The other four lost their luster seemingly overnight--one day, they were perky and green, the next, they were sagging and yellowed. We discovered the (numerous) culprits thanks to some quick searching on the internets. It seems we were the lucky recipients of squash vine borers, which were new to us and absolutely heinous.

*I wish those aforementioned green-thumbed gardeners had warned us about these monsters.
So freakin' gross.

We're keeping our fingers crossed for our lone survivor, but we're definitely not counting on it to produce. Fortunately, we got about a dozen nice zucchinis before the plague hit, and I've had funusing them. The last of them deserved a special purpose, so I broke out my loaf pans and made some quick bread.

Like standard banana bread but unlike sweet potato bread, it seems I prefer my banana zucchini bread toasted, though your mileage may vary. Would a tomato jam be weird on this? I have a few (hundred) tomatoes ripening as we speak. Eh, maybe. I'll stick with butter for now.

There's very little evidence of zucchini in this bread, so if you're dealing with some picky eaters, this is a good way to get some green stuff down their gullets.

Pre-Squash-Vine-Borer Banana Zucchini Bread

Makes 2 9x5- or 8x4-inch loaves
Ingredients:

4 cups all-purpose flour

1-1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

2 cups granulated sugar

1/2 cup butter, softened

4 large eggs

2 cups mashed ripe banana (about 3 bananas)

1 cup shredded zucchini

2/3 cup plain (or vanilla!) yogurt

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease two 9x5- or 8x4-inch loaf pans.
In a bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, salt, and spices, stirring with a whisk.
Place sugar and butter in a large bowl, and beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended (about 1 minute).
Add the eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
Add banana, zucchini, yogurt, and vanilla; beat until blended.
Add flour mixture; beat at low speed just until moist.
Spoon batter evenly into prepared pans and bake for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean.
Cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack; remove from pans. Cool completely on wire rack.

Lordy, that's an ugly bug! Does make gardening less fun, for certain. I have a sneaky feeling you'll get lots of anti bug suggestions in comments this week. We always had some squash growing when we lived up north....do not remember having a problem with bugs. The problem was getting rid of all the Zucchini! :)Love your bread, sorry you couldn't sneak in more zucchini.Can't resist giving you our family recipe for buckwheat pancakes. They're wonderful.http://moveablefeastscookbook.blogspot.com/2010/06/fathers-and-grandfathers.html